NEW YORK — From toilet paper to wine bottles, states across the U.S. have been seeing shortages on the shelves due to persisting supply chain issues.
Now, the backup is coming for a quintessential New York City breakfast — bagels with cream cheese.
That's right, several media outlets are reporting that a schmear shortage has the hands of northern bagel shop owners tied.
CBS New York reports the issue isn't with cream cheese itself, but rather with the plastic tubes used to deliver it to stores and bakeries.
“Usually this is just wall-to-wall bulk cream cheese, all along the racks and along the floor, and it’s just nothing. We usually have 15 pounds at a time. This is zero, zero cases,” Joe Yemma, co-owner of F&H Dairies told the station.
His company is responsible for supplying the schmear to more than 100 bagel shops across the city.
Anthony Teutonico, who owns Heartland Bagels on Staten Island, told Fox News his distributor's inability to get their hands on packaging is costing his business money. Some days, he said he has to go out and find the supply himself.
"You can’t get a bagel without cream cheese," he told Fox & Friends.
Another store's general manager even told the New York Times he's resorted to begging, while another said they only have enough cream cheese to last them roughly three days.
"This is bad. This is very bad,” Pick-a-Bagel manager Pedro Aguilar told the outlet.
